Internet Caching - How it Can Affect Web Design

Welcome to the Freeola customer support pages. This guide is designed to help with problems relating to website changes not taking affect immediately, and delays with new websites appearing online after DNS or hosting service changes. For more help topics, please visit our main Support Page.

Sometimes when creating or making changes to a website you may find that changes do not take affect immediately. This can often be caused by Internet caching, whereby some data has been stored (cached) to increase loading times or prevent repeat requests. When you then make a change, if this stored data is still being referred back to, you may still see an unchanged website until the stored data expires.

When managing websites, there are two main types of Internet caching that you may come into contact with. These are as follows:

• Browser Caching - Where information is saved within your web browser to reduce page loading times.

• DNS Caching - Where a server IP address (location) is stored by your ISP for up to 24hrs.

More information relating to both of these types Internet caching can be found below.

When you visit a webpage in your web browser (Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Safari etc.), it will often save a copy of files relating to the page so that if you return it doesn't need to load the page again.

If you have made a change to a webpage and are still seeing an old version on that page when you revisit it, in most browsers pressing Ctrl+F5 on the keyboard will cause the cache to be cleared for that page, and the page to be loaded anew.

Sometimes your browser may cache a redirect that has since changed, a page which you may not access directly, or other data that can not be cleared just by pressing Ctrl+F5. In the first instance, if you restart your browser, this will often clear the outdated cache.

If you are still seeing outdated information, you may need to clear the entire cache in your browser. The process for doing this varies depending on your browser and version. We provide a guide on the most popular software within our Support Guides pages.

If you change the web hosting service that you are using for your website, you may be affected by DNS caching. This is where the address of the web server is stored with your DNS provider for up to 24hrs following you visiting your website. If the address of the web server changes during these 24hrs, any visitors using the same DNS provider will still be redirected to the old web server until the cached record expires up 24hrs later.

So, for example, if you move your website hosting from a Freeola Web Hosting package to the RQS website builder, it can take up to 24hrs before you are able to view your RQS site online if anyone using the same DNS provider (including yourself) has viewed your website in the last 24hrs.

The possible solutions for this are as follows:

• Allow up to 24hrs to be able to view your website online. (recommended)

• Alter the host records on your machine. (not recommended)

This is the recommended course of action as it does not involve any internal changes on your machine and just involves allowing some time. Often you find that changes take affect within a few hours.

This is not recommended unless you are confident making the necessary changes. Due to potential complications, and possible problems this could cause, this will not be explained here, and is advised against.